Freefall
by Jen Littlebottom
Summary: Crossover with Ayn Rand's 'The Fountainhead'. Maglor meets a certain young architect. For Joan.


Disclaimer:  Maglor belongs to Tolkien.  Howard Roark belongs to Ayn Rand.  The entire idea for this is the fault of Joan Milligan, who inspired it, and then kindly allowed me to leech off her ideas and write it.

The stars were ever the same.

The world changed.  Empires rose, empires fell, and men were born and lived and died and forgot and were forgotten.  The road to the west was closed, long ago, and those who had stayed behind had faded, no more than faint wisps of their feä remaining.  And of all that they had fought for, what was there left?

The earth.  The stars.  And Maglor.

He came here, while men slept, while the stars were high.  He came here for peace, to escape from the world of Men.  Sometimes he would take up his flute (this one he had carved from a fallen holly-tree, the wood almost too soft, too eager to be shaped), and play the old songs, the notes soaring high and pure through the still night air.

He felt a prickle at the back of his neck, and when he turned there was a man staring at him.  A boy, to tell the truth, tall and lanky, his skin ill-fitting; he looked as if his feä might seek escape at any moment, might explode outwards in some grand blaze of fire and fury.

Maglor was used to being stared at.  Men had forgotten much, but some ancient impulse was still sparked when one foreign to their blood walked among them.  But this was no curious child-stare; this was a look of challenge, a gaze that dared him to react, to lash out, to speak.

It was extremely irritating.

"Are you a musician, then?"

His fingers flew to the flute that sat in his lap, forgotten.  "Among other things," Maglor replied, annoyed that this child could put him on the defensive.  "And you?"

"An architect.  Or I will be.  Among other things."

"A noble occupation."

"Is it?"  Grey eyes smirked from beneath a mop of red hair.

"To create is the most noble thing any Man could hope to do, is it not?" Maglor asked.  And not just Men, either, he added silently.  He had a sudden memory of his father at work, bending the world to his will – metal, gems, sons, - all moulded into the images he chose.

"Why should it be considered noble?  In order to create, you must destroy."  The boy indicated their surroundings.  "The life of the creator is about power, not nobility.  Power over lesser things."  He half-closed his eyes, as if imagining something, willing his words into life.  "I think I should very much like to take the world to pieces, and rebuild it as I like.  To take stone and wood and metal and force them to obey my word."  His eyes fluttered open, steel-grey, stone-grey.  "It would be very beautiful.  But not noble."

"Stone and wood and metal." interjected Maglor.  "But not flesh."

"Flesh is very much a lesser material." replied the boy.  "It has less purpose than the others."

A lesser material indeed; and Maglor wondered at the truth in his words.  Had his father been angered, not by the actions and rebellions of others, but by his own inability to shape them, body and mind, to his liking?

There was a long pause.

"Who do I remind you of?"

Mortals were not meant to have such insight, and Maglor scowled for the briefest of moments.  "That is none of your business"

The boy laughed, the sound brash and sharp.  "He never needed you.  A creator lives only for his work; he needs no other man.  And yet you are still bound by him, even now, because you always wanted him to need you."

"And like him," snarled Maglor in return, "your self-centred, arrogant behaviour shall be your downfall.  You shall move through life with no care for others, leaving a trail of destroyed souls in your wake; not even using them, no, but tossing men aside as too weak for your purpose.  And for what?" A fine-boned hand tossed a pebble of flint at the boy, who caught it without thinking.  "For stone, stone that will not speak to you, that will not care for you, that cannot love you…  for stone you will fall."

The boy considered the stone in his hand.  No, thought Maglor, that was wrong.  He caressed it, examined it, knew just by looking at it all that it ever had been or might become.

"Does anything yet remain?  Does his mark yet lie upon this world?"

For all that the boy looked mortal, smelled mortal, sounded mortal, Maglor wondered for a moment if he was indeed mortal, or some other type of creature, perplexing and unknown.  Because his words rang with the hollow echo of the voice of a father long lost; Eärendil above shone sudden-bright, and from Maglor's lips spilt the words of his mother-tongue, a prayer, a curse.

The boy smiled, a wicked fey-grin.  "Then that is all that matters.  Flesh fades, but the creator lives for his work.  He lives on in his work.  He needs nothing else."

"And if he falls?"  _Noldolantë_, Noldonainië, Noldomandë…__

A shrug, a smile.  "Better to fall than to never have flown at all."


End file.
